Playing with Natural Dyes - Part 1

The fall colors are winding down....... the colors have been so beautiful, I've been in a state of eyegasm for weeks....ahhhhhhhhhhh!

I wanted to capture some of the beauty, so I've been experimenting with dyeing

fabric and transferring color to fabric directly from the leaves. 

Today, I'm sharing some of the dyeing results with you.

Do you see the Oak leaves? 

I started out with Oak leaves, because I know that acorns have tannin and so I figured that the leaves would have some as well......... they transferred pretty well. 

I like the dark impressions from the outer layer of dye. I wrapped the cloth around sticks with the leaves sandwiched in the middle, and then dunked them into a crock pot that I have specifically for crafts. (Never use your crafts appliances for making foods, some of the chemistry may linger and be unhealthy) I'm going to look for some sticks of larger dimension to get more of the dark impressions throughout the cloth, although that will mean dyeing less fabric at a time. 
I've been letting them steep in the hot liquid for 1-2 days at a time, occasionally topping off the water level.

The fabric picks up somewhat different impressions on one side than the other, depending on the side of the leaf touching the fabric and how it's exposed to the dye solution.

The photo underneath is the reverse side of the photo above.

Here's one done on denim. This was a pre-mordanted fabric and picked up the leaf color well. 

I tried mordanted and non-mordanted pieces, but not of the same fabrics....... so much for the scientific approach! 

I'll have to try that out again with another batch. I'm so impatient to see them, I've been a bit resistant to slowing down and pre-mordanting them. Most of the white fabric is from an old comforter that I'm recycling. I figure it's  a bleached cotton and fairly receptive to coloring, but I should try some mordanted just to see if there's a difference.

Another front and back piece.....

The yellow was where the fabric was closest to the branch, so most likely the coloring is coming  from the branch itself. This is a tree in the back yard I haven't id'd yet. Have to ask the landlord if she knows what it is or id it.

This is a cotton gauze that was mordanted. The color mainly picked up just around the leaves.

A couple more pieces... I experimented with different materials to bind the fabric.... twine.... some old rusty wire. Rust is wonderful for dyeing.

The reverse of the above piece.......

I'm having so much fun with this that I'm trying out other leaves, so more photos in a following post. I've also collected a big bag of leaves, so that I can keep going even after the falling leaves are done. 

The bf is super-excited to have bags of leaves in the garage- hahaha

Spring Eggs

So, probably this should've been posted a week ago, but this is my attempt at natural egg coloring. This is something I still have to perfect. I tried a few different dye baths using natural materials and these two so far at least gave me some real color, turmeric and elderberry. Yes, I added vinegar to the baths, and simmered them to unleash the color. I tried paprika, but it didn't do a whole lot. I didn't have a rack to dry them on, so I stuck them in an empty egg carton, which gave them this sort of mottled look, which I actually liked.

My local egg lady has eggs again, yay! and these are eggs shells as they naturally occur:

I'm kinda leaning toward the natural look.......

Has anyone else had luck with natural dyes? What did you use?

Corn Husk Yarn Dye

Last summer I grew some Indian corn that was the most gorgeous colors of red, purple and yellow. Do you remember the pretty Corn Dolly I made from it? I saved a bunch of the husks and cobs to experiment with hand dyeing some wool, after reading a blog by GingerbreadSnowflakes . I love making things with natural materials, but I hate brown; so it's always a challenge to see what I will get. There are a couple of things I might try differently next year, because I did end up with brown, albeit a reddish brown. First I simmered the wool in Dharma's Professional Textile Detergent which is a non-toxic, less expensive Synthrapol substitute, to clean it. I used dried, then simmered pomegranate peels for my mordant. They were actually TOO acidic, as I was shooting for a pH of 4, so I adjusted back and forth with washing soda, alkaline; and vinegar, acidic to get the pH where I wanted it. It was a good mordant, but the wool picked up some yellow-brown from the pomegranate that might not have gotten the final color where I wanted it. I used the pH strips for dying from Earth Hues , which is here in Seattle. Most places that carry pH strips don't measure the full spectrum of pH. I tried getting strips from a fish store and then Lowe's, but they were geared to specific uses, and didn't go down to pH 4. Earth Hues also ships their products.

The next issue I had was that I've been using a slow cooker to simmer my dyes, and previously I had it sitting outside where I think the cool air kept it from actually boiling, and I'm afraid the heat got too high and may have browned out the color. So, I will have to work on keeping the temperature a little lower and see what happens.

I simmered the corn husks to extract the color; strained, and simmered the wool yarn in it for about an hour and then let it sit cool overnight before rinsing.

This is the color of the yarn after dyeing, it's a little browner than it looks in this photo:

With this project, I didn't want to resort to over-dyeing with food coloring from the supermarket to  make the color nicer, so I looked around at what else I had in the kitchen. I was making a borscht, so I simmered about a cup of the beet peelings in filtered water, and strained. I use filtered water so that I'm not wondering whether the chemicals and contaminants in tap water might be affecting the color. Everything I read online said that beets wouldn't add much coloring as a dye, so I wasn't too optimistic, but tried it anyway, with about 1/4 cup of vinegar. Again, I boiled for about an hour, and then let it sit overnight before rinsing. I'm using super-wash wool, so I don't have a problem with it felting. It added quite a bit more red, as you can see in the photo below. Of course with natural dyes, it remains to be seen with washing, time and light whether the color will fade or brown out, but I was pleased with the finished yarn.

I would love to see the process and results of your experiments with natural dyes! Let me see what's worked for you.